Car Wars was originally published by Steve Jackson Games in 1980. In this game, you typically play the role of an 'autoduellist', a futuristic sportsman who drove in autoduelling events. What's autoduelling, you say? Vehicular Combat as a future sport, of course.

The game was set Twenty Minutes into the Future ... OK, well, 40-50 years. A number of crises have beset the North American continent, including a famine, a (minor) nuclear exchange, and a refighting of the Civil War. It's After the End, although it's not all the way at the end — in fact, truck stops are explicitly compared to medieval (or at least fantasy RPG) inns. Good thing, since there's bandits out there. The sport of autoduelling grew in this environment, what with people treating guns like adventurers might treat swords/axes/bows in fantasy settings. That, and 'Crazy Joe' Harshman winning a demolition derby by More Dakka. (Well, any dakka is more if you're the only one with it, right?)

Originally, the rules supported normal vehicles—cars and bikes. Naturally, a game system that lets you weaponise anything that's got an engine will expand, and sooner or later someone will wonder what the military will have once civilians are allowed rocket launchers, leaving room for Splatbooks to describe just that. The only vehicles that ended up unsupported were outright submarines and spacecraft when support stopped in the mid to late 1990s. Those who want to dive in best hit auctions.

Jackson tried a reboot in the early 2000s with Car Wars 5.0, but the system never took off—it was sold as various prebuilt cars in two-packs with each having a copy of the rules, and gamers who thirsted for the construction rules never got them. It didn't fare that well.

A spinoff was a card game with similar ideas, although some concepts are noticeably different. This was given an expansion pack, Battle Cattle, which features ... well, guess. A second was a computer game, Autoduel, from Origin Systems. There was also a tabletop RPG, using Jackson's GURPS system and the Autoduel name.

After the success of their Kickstarter for a new version of Ogre (another classic wargame) Jackson announced that they will be doing a similar Kickstarter for Car Wars sometime in 2014, after absorbing the lessons from the previous fundraiser.

This game provides examples of:

Ace Pilot: You wish you were one. Uses the old airplane definition, too; if you double this, you're a Double Ace.

BFG: The tank gun, an army-surplus 105mm cannon only mountable on the likes of trucks and buses (and even then only to the front or rear).

Body Backup Drive: A duelist can arrange to have Gold Cross grow a clone from his cells and store a copy of his mind. If he dies, his mind is downloaded into the clone and the player continues to use the character.

Blood Brothers: All truck drivers belong to The Brotherhood. Fuck with one, you're fucking with all of them.

Blood Sport and Deadly Game: Autoduelling is noted as coming from demolition derby, just a little more thorough and long-ranged. Note that while you can gun down someone who surrenders without legal ramification, you're bound to lose points with the fans (assuming the referee pays attention).

Bottomless Magazines: Nope, none here. You gotta pay for ammo, unless you use lasers—in which case, you use up your FUEL.

Car Fu: Inevitable in this setting, but more fun when you buy a ramplate. Comment in-universe was that this was developed for cars AFTER someone started using machineguns.

Everything Is Big in Texas: Relatively well-off, considering the USA isn't too forgiving, and Louisiana and Oklahoma aren't all that friendly either. To be expected, given that Steve Jackson is based in Austin.

Flamethrower Backfire: A vehicle-mounted flamethrower could burst into flames and explode if hit by weapons fire.

Just Between You and Me: Autoduel Quarterly magazine Volume 7 #2, adventure "Mutant Zone". If the PCs are captured they're taken to Blob, the mutants' leader, who explains his plans to them.

Kill It with Fire: Flamethrowers and incendiary ammunition let you do this. Fireproof armour and fire extinguishers help you not get this.

Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: Lasers are rare and expensive, although they're not treated as odd. One sourcebook mentions that the military doesn't use weapon lasers, due to anti-laser armour.

When the rules for tanks were printed this was justified by demonstrating that most laser weapons were incapable of engaging tanks and causing meaningful damage, whereas a typical tank can completely shatter a dueling car in one shot.

Magnetic Weapons: The gauss gun, a flechette-ammunition coilgun that in later versions consumed battery power as well as ammunition.

Oil Slick: Available for your purchase. There's also a flaming variant, which by the vehicle-description rules could not be distinguished from the normal kind until the oil slick lights up.

Point Build System: How you bought skills, and effectively how you built vehicles (every chassis had a certain number of "spaces" and a weight limit, and for arena-use vehicles you had to pick a price bracket to compete in).

Pop the Tires: Some dueling arenas have rules against shooting at other cars' tires because it's too easy to disable them that way.

Retcon: A minor one. In Autoduel Quarterly Volume 2 #2, the "Badlands Run" adventure featured a pair of scorpions the size of semi's for the players to defeat. When the adventure was translated into a Choose Your Own Adventure style gamebook, the scorpions were changed to holograms.

Rules Lawyer: A joke item available for use in Uncle Al's Catalog from Hell. Negates the equally fictional Rule Bender, a device used to settle arguments on judgment calls in your favour.

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